Looking for digital recording equipment ideas?

A company called M-Audio make and sell just what you need. They have an M-BOX and other higher spec products that work with any computer. These allow you (with software and mics) to record digital audio and mix it and create multi-track songs (as many tracks as the computer can handle)

The important thing these do is they have Zero Latency, which allows you to listen to what you've already recorded (on headphones) while laying down new tracks (vocals or instruments) without any delays. Check out www.maudio.com or ebay for their products.

There are a couple of products from Tascam that use cassette tapes. You can get them used/factory-refurbished for around $100 from some places. This is about as cheap as it gets for a compact recording "studio" that has any kind of quality. The better Tascam tape units go for about $200.

After that there are the digital units that start at $250 and go up from there. Some high end "personal" units can easily go for 1000s of $.

For me, I set up separate components based around my PC. The key is a 24-bit low-noise audio card and recording software (I use Cakewalk, but there are several different similar softwares out there). My whole system cost around $1000 (including the computer).

For starters I would go with a TASCAM Porta 02 MKII Portastudio

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Tascam-Port...

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The Canon FS200 is compact, easy to use and well worth the price. The optical zoom is very impressive. The built-in LED lamp will be useful only for close-ups in the dark. Be sure to order a large flash-memory card with the camera -- a 16GB card will hold about 2 hours of video. I haven't yet figured out how to use the accompanying software, and use Windows Explorer to transfer video to computer. You will want a computer capable of burning DVD to store the video files. One DVD disk will hold about 1 hour of high-quality video. I bought the camera to film interviews thinking to use an external microphone, which might have worked had I used a stereo microphone, but my microphone was mono. The built-in microphone turned out to be adequate, though. Canon FS200 Flash Memory Camcorder with 37x Optical Zoom * Record video directly to a removable SDHC memory card * Genuine Canon lens with 41x Advanced Zoom, 37x optical zoom and 2000x digital zoom * Digic DV II image processor * Widescreen HR recording, Dual Shot Mode and Image Stabilizer * Ultra-sleek, lightweight design allows you to take your camcorder with you anywhere

rg